You don't want them to get lung damage from all the dust that can collect on the inside, and a good demo on 'dirty computing' is to turn any keyboard upside down and watch what falls out.
You won't have any trouble getting them to wash their hands after that:-).
But yes, it's great for kids to see the guts of a machine, because especially when they're young they tend to be more interested in the physical, practical side of things.
I especially bought a Roland plotter off eBay for teaching as a pen moving in X/Y coordinates is more fun than a picture coming out of a jet printer - it's great for getting them to see what a 'program' actually does, working out coordinates of a little house and then writing the lines to make the pen(s) move.
I've got quite a bit of experience with kids on computers in multiple environments (OSX, Linux, Windows) and it is actually/TOTALLY/ immaterial which OS is in use.
As soon as they have mastered using a mouse and become curious about what other apps reside on the machine they will pretty much dive in and work it out, and they do that as early as 6 years old as long as you control the distraction called the Internet (they're too young at that stage to fully comprehend the risks so you keep an eye on them there).
As a matter of fact, I'd avoid Windows in this context because even a local installation of Linux from scratch takes less time to prepare and maintain than Windows, and you don't have all the license and AV hassle to deal with (your $5 is only a cheap ticket to a very expensive fairground, and MS knows that all too well). For that final bill (AV, apps, cost of licence management and patch maintenance) I can get an extra PC per installed system using Linux.
The argument "use Windows like other lemmings" is invalid, especially if you really want to TEACH the kids - I prefer them to use all platforms, even including command lines if they get really curious. Let's not constrain their young and open minds, there will be plenty of politicians trying to do that later.
I found the biggest fear factor (happily enhanced by MS sales people) to lie in the "it's going to be hard to learn something different" argument.
You can answer that in two ways:
(1) practical experience. LiveCDs are a very good 'selling' tool for this, or indeed do what I did as described. Mine was a genuine attempt to find out what problems there were, and there were few worth mentioning - and I had a willing user after a couple of virus infections nearly destroyed all her records..
(2) Find users who changed Windows versions, and were upgraded from one version of Office to the next. Good gaps to focus on are W98 -> W2K/W XP and Office 2000 -> 2003 (I can't believe how they neutered Visio's fairly effective interface).
Changing to Linux is actually less change, and the delta between new versions of the GUI and applications is much less pronounced, partly because there is no NEED to be 'new' and 'innovative' because nobody needs features just for having a sales argument. That stability alone is worth money to a business - which is also why it's buried under FUD..
Been there, done that, annoyed MS wth my T-shirt..
I specifically asked a friend of mine to use Linux for a month. She started on SuSE Linux Pro 9.0.
The situation: her (W98) laptop was about to die, so I scraped the data off with Linux. I didn't have anything lying around but a Linux laptop, so I asked her if she was willing to try (time was too short to put a Windows build on that box - another thing Linux is MUCH quicker at as long as the hardware in use is kernel supported).
Her profile: financial journalist, with teenage kids surfing the net. Almost nil system knowledge (read: an MS Office junkie). Her problem: her machine had out of date AV and was thus infested with spyware and trojans, and I can imagine that the case for a lot of people. I've found some of the hoops that people have to jump through to renew their package more complicated than installing Linux. The joy of a captive market. But I digress.
The result: after a month or so learning curve and a battle with a USB printer (CUPS wasn't quite ready for the ALl-in-one she had) she enjoyed not having to worry about virus infections. It never crashes, just works, and work, and works. She edits Word docs in OpenOffice and her clients are none the wiser (articles go in PDF:-).
The only glitch she had was that she was sent an email by accident by a bunch of solicitors who claimed it wasn't a problem 'because she wouldn't be able to open it anyway'. Well, she could. Those guys were sold a security system that assumed Windows - stupid.
She's now been a Linux convert for over 2 years, and I'm thinking about moving her to Ubuntu as it'll be easier for her to get support for it - she doesn't need it often but it's that safe feeling that matters (I'm abroad so no help for her:-). Meanwhile, one of the kids has taken to coding, and I think she'll be good at it..
What you're after is called control panel trunking. For an example what it looks like, go to http://rswww.com/ and enter "PVC open slot trunking" in the search box (I tend to use mainly black 50x50mm). This is, incidentally, also the trick I have seen on some rack systems to keep it looking tidy. That doesn't mean it IS tidy (matter of definition), but it looks that way:-).
Cut it to size and drop on the floor behind equipment or under your desk, or screw down where required. Best use separate ones for mains power and signal cable, but I've managed with all-in-one as well (not with audio, though).
The idea is to route the cable straight in, route out at exit point and roll up the excess inside the tray. However, if you're thinking of doing that with power cable you better make very sure that you don't go near the rated capacity of the cable (sensible in any case), so a cable powering an electric heater is probably not a good candidate.
After you're done, pop on the lid and it all looks wonderfully tidy. Yet, if you want to change something, all you do is rip the lid off and change. I've once had a workroom where I'd simply run a trunk all the way round the room, just above the skirting board, and my desk has one just under the edge, plus one running down a leg. That was a real hi tech solution, it was fitted using double sided sticky tape:-)
In an office you just use sensible colours, so I guess blue is probably not the best solution . It's basically just following some visual tricks, the eye ignores straight lines and regular patterns.
Caveat: I repeat, this makes it LOOK tidy. It can still become a complete nightmare inside, and I've found that at occasions it's simply better to rip the lot out and start again.
So there. It's not as hard as it looks - you just have to know which tools to use..
I suggest such entries are tested for sustainability. Identify 100 random ports that need to be repatched and see how wonderful that looks afterwards, especially if done by non-qualified staff (like you'll often find at managed offices).
Making it look good NEW is a matter of sorting our your patch paths (no, I don't like tie wraps as they get in the way later), making it look good forever requires IMHO dedication and a cleanup every so often (let's stay realistc:-). It is, however, much better when tidy as you don't spend ages tracing a cable.
I'd agree with you, if I didn't have the impression that the original poster wants to scan things that are not of a 'regular' printed size. Most consumer grade ADFs are designed to only handle A4 or letter.
I still have a couple of PSION Organiser II. 64k RAM, EPROM based storage packs, robust as hell and work off a 9V battery (read: it's portable).
The main reason this is interesting is the language: Organiser Programming Language (OPL) was a sort of combination of BASIC and Pascal, quite structured and flexible and, most importantly, because the thing was portable you could code anywhere. It ran fast because source code needed to be 'translated' to a sort of executable (akin to Pascal's original P code).
The language was extended in later products such as the PSION MX5, I think you can even still get that on eBay. Not as robust, but more 'normal' computing statistics, and I think the storage was no longer proprietary either.
If all else fails, AFAIK Symbian based products may also have that language..
"Better end-user package installation that doesn't rely on the web to get dependencies resolved and when the support is there for those who just want to use linux instead of compliling and modifying every little aspect to their liking are treated with respect then linux will be ready for the desktop."
As far as I can tell, you've more or less identified where Ubuntu is going. Not some 'me too' distro, but one with a clear focus on being simple, commercially supportable and rock solid. I migrated from Slackware on floppies (yes, I am that old;-) to RH to SuSE. Barring the new Novell Desktop which I haven't tried yet I found Ubuntu the easiest to knock up a system for office staff.
As a matter of fact, it's now my preferred desktop. It's really only Visio that I can't yet replace (and by that I mean the 2000 version, MS has pretty much butchered usability in the 2003 version).
Quite simply, it rocks, and those supporting desktops know what it means if you can also boot cold off a live CD and access the system.
I've recently started an "IT for Leaders" coaching package which gives CEOs insight in what IT actually does for them and how they can (a) tell IT what they need and (b) understand what IT is trying to tell them. I simply got fed up with sales people selling them crap so I figured I'd deal with the root cause.
Now, my background is security so one whole session is dedicated to risk management (with 'Beyond Fear' as one of the important references to read) and you have no idea how much they don't know (it's one of the reasons this course is rather successful:-). The problem is that you cannot get their ear unless they want to hear, so here are 3 steps.
(1) First of all, cover yourself. Preserve emails and keep printed copies. Do NOT rely on the email staying in the system (fatal mistake). You have done your best, but, let's face it, you're the messenger.
(2) Make a detailed risk analysis, or, better, get them to buy time from one of the hideously expensive consultancies to do the same. I could do it, but you'd have to ship me from Europe (CH) so it would get even more costly (although I've done some work in Sacramento a while back, staying a couple of floors under where Arnie apparently has his residence;-). The reason to throw money at is because some of these guys will not pay attention unless it hurts their budget or wallet (I guess that's why they buy MS, but I digress:-). That doesn't mean that a good consultant cannot add significant value by his/her experience, but I've worked long enough in that field to know that, numerically, the lemons far outweigh the stars so value for money is not always a given..
(3) PUT NUMBERS ON IT. Unauthorised disclosure of information can lead to competitive threat (if trade secrets and strategy), legal threat (violation of privacy), liability (consequential damages) and loss of reputation (damage to brand, company image). Each individual threat can -to a degree- be translated into $$ by making some basic assumptions, that's how insurances work. Speaking of which, lowering risk means lowering insurance premiums - also worth mentioning.
Let's face it, in a way you're in the process of selling your acutely worrying insights to higher management. Well, a basic rule of sales is that it happens either via greed, fear or both. Greed: less income, loss of bonus (notice that "the company" doesn't feature in this, it's personal). Fear: exposure of ignorance, court appearance for negligence, criminal record (depends on country).
And if it all fails, find a sympathetic ear closer to your level and hope that it percolates upwards. Or, just fix the problem without telling them. If you add a crypto section to your build which uses even the basic Windows encryption (i.e. encrypted unless logged in) you have at least started to deal with some of the issues. I found it's quite good to give senior management fingerprint sensing laptops because of the gadget factor. That in the background you can hook up a crypto suite is not something they're even aware of, but it makes you sleep better at night. However, make absolutely sure that you have some sort of automated backup process going that works, like a DLO client. Otherwise, losing the key is about the same as erasing the data.
If you're in the UK, make sure you document crypto key creation and disposal or you could end up in trouble if you get served with a warrant under the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act. Under RIPA you're guilty until you can prove your innocence if you cannot access corporate encrypted data..
Face it, if you stick entirely with Microsoft products, there is no such glue code.
Hmm, you've either been only near greenfield developments or have never been a large scale upgrade or deployment. Why do you think those outsourcing code outfits turn a good buck? Because it all works so well? Ever tried to move from.Net 1.0 to.Net 1.1 - pretty smooth, wasn't it?
[..] all work flawlessly without needing a full time IT staff.
We were talking about dev costs, not staff, but OK, you're alleging all those products work 'flawlessly'. If they're so wonderful I'd like to know why it's almost required to run a separate update network just to keep up with the patching. As an example, it has already been determined that it's simply no longer possible for a home user to keep up with it if they have the misfortune not to have access to broadband (see securityfocus.com). A 56k modem can NOT keep up. And that incessant updating DOES require people: in any sensible organisation any update means (1) evaluation and test (2) small scale rollout (3) mass rollout and update of builds. Or would you suggest we accept the MS updates as-is and get ourselves another Windows Genuine Advantage mess (misnomer of the year IMHO)? I'd really like to see the support model you get for $70/unit if you also have to pay for software..
To piece together a similar system on a Linux platform requires significantly more time and effort (which means more money).
Loong ago. You can get a full CMS based website up, including installation from the bare metal upwards in something of about 30 mins. That's stable, mirrored, patched, firewalled and secured, and with a journalling file system. I don't think you've even installed just Windows by then:-). I could cheat and tell you 20 seconds, but that's a virtualised section of a mainframe and doesn't count:-). BTW, locked user accounts have been the default for years with Linux as it was designed as multi-user, which is also why privilege escalation works so well when it's needed. 'Run as Administrator' is not exactly a smooth process under Windows. You have to put quite a lot of effort in (read: time/effort/cost) to go secure - and it breaks things as quite a lot of code written for Windows still assumes too high privileges. Firewalling is also not exactly new to Linux either, although BSD had it it earlier (that's what Gauntlet used to be based on, a good 10 years ago)
I couldn't help noticing from this post (and others) that we're really dealing with a case of Linux envy here:
1 - you can't get Linux to work on your new hardware
2 - you can't get Linux to work on your old hardware
3 - at some point you seem to need namecalling as a way of expressing your opinion I'm no less a Linux "fanboy" than you are a Microserf (OK, I have my doubts but you do seem to realise the existence of other stuff beyond MS so there is hope)
4 - you seem to consider the "free" offerings from MS a genuine gift to humanity rather than the saturation ploy it really is (UK schools have found that out to their cost)
5 - any idea why people use all that free, non-MS, unsupported stuff to do real work, especially since you stated this earlier: if you stick entirely with Microsoft products, there is no such glue code?
Your sole argument in practically all the hardware discussions seems to be that WiFi card you couldn't get to work. I had a Matrox VGA card that flaked in virtually all the Windows versions I used it on, even with driver updates (NT to XP) whereas it was OK in X. I suggest you do what I did: buy a better one:-).
Before I forget, I stupidly forgot the magic ingredient: having a VISION to follow, and I don't mean that in the 'I seeee a siiign' way although that too matches the requirements:-). Duh.
Look beyond the bluster and the, um, somewhat socially inept commentary (not unusual for tech people). He knows what he wants, says it the way he sees it and in general leaves no doubt what it takes to work in his sphere. Is he always right? No. Does everyone agree with him? No. Yet he continues to have a loyal following because he knows what he's doing, has a good track record and is consistent. This also gets me to another challenge for leaders: knowing how to be wrong.
If you have ran teams like I have with absolute stars in their field you may know as much as you want - an experienced hack is likely to have come across another way of doing things that may help move things along faster. That's why you employ them, so not letting them speak is stupid IMHO. I've had to knock sense into countless managers who somehow seemed to consider changing an approach because it's someone elses idea an attack on their authority. In my book the roles are pretty accurately defined: my team is supposed to give me the advice I need to decide what we're going to do, but after listening to everyone it's still *my* decision. That works both ways too: it's my neck, not theirs, and God help anyone trying to yell at my team without coming through me - it would break my 'praise in public', 'discuss in private' policy. I'm not a good guy to have a problem with, there's more to social engineering then just getting passwords .
I don't mean non-ego in the 'not having an ego' sense, I mean non-ego in that a decision process of a good leader should be divorced from whatever ego the person possesses. If you can manage that you're a leader, especially if you can add people management skills to that. And yes, I wouldn't rate Linus very high on the people skills, but for the people he deals with it's almost not required.
I must admit, though, that his habit of totally refusing the play the normal media games (i.e. thus annoying the hell out of people who are looking for some sort of sensational statement they can print) never stops amusing me..
I once was an area tech support guy for what can be reasonably be considered the first PDA, the Psion Organiser II (if you look long enough you'll still find some of my code hiding on the Net:-). I was helping a local dealer at some show, and at the end of two long days we got bored, and used one of the demo machines for a 10 minute football match. Don't ask me how we came up with that idea, but boredom does strange things to me:-).
I'm talking stock standard 'out-of-the-box' vanilla hardware here - no fancy protective rubber covers as sold on that same show - just bare plastic. Mind you, that thing was constructed like a brick. I've seen it run over by cars and if the sleeve was closed it stood a good chance of surviving.
After that match the thing still happily showed the demo through a now rather scratched plexi window (I think it was one of the earliest versions, with 2x16 character display). We then strolled over to one of the stands with 'industrialised' versions (read: heavier and a lot more expensive) and dared them to 'sponsor' a unit for the next match. Tactical mistake: they refused in front of by now a rather large audience.
Result: we burned so fast through our stock of machines we had to start taking orders and ring the UK manufacturer to urgently ship more.. It was a neat little machine (6303 8-bit processor) and I still have two of the later 4 line versions, with 512k flash, barcode reader, swipe card reader and caliper peripherals (the latter I had to design myself for a car quality control project:-).
You know, I don't think I'd be able to bring myself to do that with a Thinkpad:-).
.. I'd use to put my jack on if I ever got stuck in a muddy field. It would survive - they are seriously robust pieces of kit. Having said that, I'm happy with my dual core VIAO now, about the only thing I miss is the keyboard LED.
As I posted earlier, even in a meritocracy you need leadership. As long as participants (a) recognise that leadership is a skill in itself (b) respect the person herding the cats for doing that job and (c) the leader has the trust and support of the group (which is where the authority comes in, as well as strong personal ethics and honesty) it'll work.
The trust is the hard bit - it's a special skill to manage a number of often quite strong personalities. People that are good at what they do/know/ they are good - the challenge is to make them see that they can even be better by allowing the team to work as a team. And I know from happy experience that it only takes one team session where everyone works as a team to convert those people forever to the idea./THAT/ is leadership in my book.
I disagree with you. Even a meritocracy needs some method of breaking deadlock. The challenge is to find what I'd term an 'enlightened' leader. To define the term, it's a leader who him/herself is as ego-free as you can get it, sets achievable aims and who can balance out discussions in a fair but focused and constructive way. I certainly class Linus Torvalds and Mark Shuttleworth in that category, Linus by reputation and what he does, and Mark because I know him (and again, by what he has done and is doing). BTW, 'enlightened' does not mean 'perfect' - we're all human:-).
I have led tech teams myself, and I can still call any of the people I've worked with and ask them to come and work for me - out of a 100 people I would be disappointed if not at least 90 would want to (barring personal circumstances). THAT is a matter of personal pride to me. Not that I screwed some more hours out of a poor slob, and I've had to re-educate quite a few managers on that topic. I've had often enough that I had to instruct team leaders to drag their team off their chairs into a restaurant or cafe because they were working too hard (yes, company paid:-) - you don't abuse the priviledge of people wanting to work for you and it's a two-way street.
Leadership is making a team of 10 think as if they were 20 strong - it sort of 'sings' and is one of the best working experiences you can have. Few teams do that by themselves because it's a different skill..
With Microsoft, there is no such bespoke integration code.
There is always some glue code required to make things work for a company, unless IT drives the business (a very, very bad way to do things but not uncommon, sadly). Simple stuff like logon and backup scripts, code management, that monthly timesheet spreadsheet - it's often hidden effort until you try and upgrade or migrate a company. Try doing any large scale migration without investigating that and you'll pay dearly. But let's leave it out - it's equal for both platforms.
with volume licensing, customers can get the latest OS and Office for less than $100 (IIRC it can be less than $70). For smaller organizations, Microsoft even offers the "Action Pack" (I know it's a horrible name) that includes 10 licenses for XP, Server 2003, Office 2003, and a boat load of other software for $250.
$70 per unit at volume is still more expensive than free last time I checked:-) And that discount won't be given under a 1000 units or so, so it's a straight $70k.
the hardware support for Windows far exceeds that of any Linux distribution, the hardware becomes much cheaper, as the acquisition time does not include matching up hardware with an OS flavor
I suggest you download a copy of Ubuntu and actually try it. I agree that MS has been fighting hard to retain that stranglehold, but it seems that hardware vendors start to realise the problem they're creating for themselves: being blackmailed and thus have one market, being open and have two.
Here's another -maintenance related- exercise for you: replace the motherboard in a system (on a corporate level, replace the machine and try to use your one build on another system when the box malfunctions). Welcome to driver hell, even appearing when the supplier has upgraded a couple of chips on their motherboard in an identical system. That's one of the things I've enjoyed with Linux over the years, all the way from Worries for Workgroups upwards - rip-n-replace. In short, "far" is overstated, and every basic Dell will spin up straightaway from a live CD.
There's another implicit advantage to this hardware freedom: it makes universal live CDs easier to construct - one CD can boot all sorts of hardware. I've worked on enough Windows systems that had a damaged NTFS structure to know just what a lifesaver that is. Letting NTFS 'repair' the disk when it has it's tables in a mess is the best data destruction method I've come across (short of using a magnet on the platters), using a Linux boot disk and getting hold of the data Windows doesn't see anymore alone is worth the effort investigating Linux. And with any Linux distro having a journalling file system by default it's actually hard to zap data by power down (less NEED for full power resets helps as well, of course, but that is thankfully becoming less and less needed).
Since when does an installation of Windows require a hardware refresh?
LOL.. Ever since MS released new hardware specs with every new version of Windows. And we're not talking about patches, I have yet to see any OS that requires a hardware swap for a patch..
[..] Sure, if you want to upgrade to a later OS, you might need a faster CPU, more memory, and more disk space to take advantage of the new features, but that same issue spans all platforms.
That is complete baloney. I've installed proper, workable systems on machines that could no longer support Windows because the "new" version had come up with new and innovative ways of wasting CPU power. As a matter of fact, it's an excellent way of recycling machines (another factor to consider in a refresh cycle). You now need more computing power than was used to send a man to the moon to run a simple word processor - where is all that going? Ah, yes, AV checking, spyware double checks, DRM management, phone-home facilities (i.e. illegal data taps) - none of it
It never ends - I always learn something new here (and long may it continue).
The learning process you describe is exactly that of martial arts as well. First you go through the moves, and especially in Tai Chi are you very quickly introduced to the idea that it's not the move that matters, it's what your mind does with it (I mention Tai Chi because it's one of the most potent forms using the mind).
It then takes years to make your mind and the moves "one" - but at least you know early what you're aiming for. A friend of mine demonstrates this rather bluntly with the 1-inch punch (move with and without mind - and make sure you have a safe landing zone), I -as an interested amateur- tend to show the waterhose method instead.
I'm over 40, and always wanted to play an instrument. I think I'm the type that accepts a period of near absence of ability, but I do need a bit of encouragement from time to time. It's time (a) working out what I want to play and (b) find a teacher locally. The two may actually influence eachother as I have no real bias. Piano, guitar, both attract (one's more portable, though), but you got me a tad worried about locking myself up in do-re-mi and fret-determined intervals:-). I'm sure it'll come out in the end;-).
If you ever come to Zurich, let me know. I'll leave my Slashdot email address enabled for a day or so to allow you to make contact if you so wish.
I really like the way you explain things. The correlation between doing things you/LIKE/ for a long time and thus become good at them. I've got another one, though: sometimes it takes a life changing event to figure out what you really like..
Incidentally, you mentioned some issues that seem to be neurologic in nature. Ever looked at neurofeedback? I've seen some frankly amazing results with that: a little kid (9 years old) with dyspraxia finally be able to cycle, and the scientific basis of it makes logical sense. I think there's a small conference on in the UK in 2 weeks.
1 desktop = 1x hardware + 1x software suite + 1x share of bespoke integration code + 1x support costs.
With Linux (say, Ubuntu), you can scrap the "1x software" expense, and share the "1x share of bespoke integration code" over a larger audience.
And that's without touching matters like hardware refresh cycles (about 50% of an MS driven cycle), deployment costs (terminal based systems, you can set up a whole classroom in one (1) hour, risk management (ever heard of a computer virus?), license management (bye bye FAST revenue model).
Oh, and support costs are way down as well. The whole Spanish Extremedura thing is managed by a handful of techs (I think 10 or so by now).
So, you can spin it anyway you want - MS/IS/ an exceptional waste of money. Even Tony Blair can't spin that one..
There is, of course, the risk that, with so much money spent on MS software, maths education hasn't been quite up to scratch, though, so maybe this isn't that clear to all.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, couldn't resist it
.. to start such a discussion, just for the hell of it. Is that what you wanted? :-)
It's the principle of giving someone a laxative for a severe cough - it won't cure it but they wouldn't DARE cough afterwards.
Argh..
You don't want them to get lung damage from all the dust that can collect on the inside, and a good demo on 'dirty computing' is to turn any keyboard upside down and watch what falls out.
:-).
You won't have any trouble getting them to wash their hands after that
But yes, it's great for kids to see the guts of a machine, because especially when they're young they tend to be more interested in the physical, practical side of things.
I especially bought a Roland plotter off eBay for teaching as a pen moving in X/Y coordinates is more fun than a picture coming out of a jet printer - it's great for getting them to see what a 'program' actually does, working out coordinates of a little house and then writing the lines to make the pen(s) move.
I've got quite a bit of experience with kids on computers in multiple environments (OSX, Linux, Windows) and it is actually /TOTALLY/ immaterial which OS is in use.
As soon as they have mastered using a mouse and become curious about what other apps reside on the machine they will pretty much dive in and work it out, and they do that as early as 6 years old as long as you control the distraction called the Internet (they're too young at that stage to fully comprehend the risks so you keep an eye on them there).
As a matter of fact, I'd avoid Windows in this context because even a local installation of Linux from scratch takes less time to prepare and maintain than Windows, and you don't have all the license and AV hassle to deal with (your $5 is only a cheap ticket to a very expensive fairground, and MS knows that all too well). For that final bill (AV, apps, cost of licence management and patch maintenance) I can get an extra PC per installed system using Linux.
The argument "use Windows like other lemmings" is invalid, especially if you really want to TEACH the kids - I prefer them to use all platforms, even including command lines if they get really curious. Let's not constrain their young and open minds, there will be plenty of politicians trying to do that later.
I found the biggest fear factor (happily enhanced by MS sales people) to lie in the "it's going to be hard to learn something different" argument.
..
You can answer that in two ways:
(1) practical experience. LiveCDs are a very good 'selling' tool for this, or indeed do what I did as described. Mine was a genuine attempt to find out what problems there were, and there were few worth mentioning - and I had a willing user after a couple of virus infections nearly destroyed all her records..
(2) Find users who changed Windows versions, and were upgraded from one version of Office to the next. Good gaps to focus on are W98 -> W2K/W XP and Office 2000 -> 2003 (I can't believe how they neutered Visio's fairly effective interface).
Changing to Linux is actually less change, and the delta between new versions of the GUI and applications is much less pronounced, partly because there is no NEED to be 'new' and 'innovative' because nobody needs features just for having a sales argument. That stability alone is worth money to a business - which is also why it's buried under FUD..
Been there, done that, annoyed MS wth my T-shirt
I specifically asked a friend of mine to use Linux for a month. She started on SuSE Linux Pro 9.0.
:-).
:-). Meanwhile, one of the kids has taken to coding, and I think she'll be good at it..
The situation: her (W98) laptop was about to die, so I scraped the data off with Linux. I didn't have anything lying around but a Linux laptop, so I asked her if she was willing to try (time was too short to put a Windows build on that box - another thing Linux is MUCH quicker at as long as the hardware in use is kernel supported).
Her profile: financial journalist, with teenage kids surfing the net. Almost nil system knowledge (read: an MS Office junkie). Her problem: her machine had out of date AV and was thus infested with spyware and trojans, and I can imagine that the case for a lot of people. I've found some of the hoops that people have to jump through to renew their package more complicated than installing Linux. The joy of a captive market. But I digress.
The result: after a month or so learning curve and a battle with a USB printer (CUPS wasn't quite ready for the ALl-in-one she had) she enjoyed not having to worry about virus infections. It never crashes, just works, and work, and works. She edits Word docs in OpenOffice and her clients are none the wiser (articles go in PDF
The only glitch she had was that she was sent an email by accident by a bunch of solicitors who claimed it wasn't a problem 'because she wouldn't be able to open it anyway'. Well, she could. Those guys were sold a security system that assumed Windows - stupid.
She's now been a Linux convert for over 2 years, and I'm thinking about moving her to Ubuntu as it'll be easier for her to get support for it - she doesn't need it often but it's that safe feeling that matters (I'm abroad so no help for her
What you're after is called control panel trunking. For an example what it looks like, go to http://rswww.com/ and enter "PVC open slot trunking" in the search box (I tend to use mainly black 50x50mm). This is, incidentally, also the trick I have seen on some rack systems to keep it looking tidy. That doesn't mean it IS tidy (matter of definition), but it looks that way :-).
:-)
Cut it to size and drop on the floor behind equipment or under your desk, or screw down where required. Best use separate ones for mains power and signal cable, but I've managed with all-in-one as well (not with audio, though).
The idea is to route the cable straight in, route out at exit point and roll up the excess inside the tray. However, if you're thinking of doing that with power cable you better make very sure that you don't go near the rated capacity of the cable (sensible in any case), so a cable powering an electric heater is probably not a good candidate.
After you're done, pop on the lid and it all looks wonderfully tidy. Yet, if you want to change something, all you do is rip the lid off and change. I've once had a workroom where I'd simply run a trunk all the way round the room, just above the skirting board, and my desk has one just under the edge, plus one running down a leg. That was a real hi tech solution, it was fitted using double sided sticky tape
In an office you just use sensible colours, so I guess blue is probably not the best solution . It's basically just following some visual tricks, the eye ignores straight lines and regular patterns.
Caveat: I repeat, this makes it LOOK tidy. It can still become a complete nightmare inside, and I've found that at occasions it's simply better to rip the lot out and start again.
So there. It's not as hard as it looks - you just have to know which tools to use..
I suggest such entries are tested for sustainability. Identify 100 random ports that need to be repatched and see how wonderful that looks afterwards, especially if done by non-qualified staff (like you'll often find at managed offices).
:-). It is, however, much better when tidy as you don't spend ages tracing a cable.
Making it look good NEW is a matter of sorting our your patch paths (no, I don't like tie wraps as they get in the way later), making it look good forever requires IMHO dedication and a cleanup every so often (let's stay realistc
I'd agree with you, if I didn't have the impression that the original poster wants to scan things that are not of a 'regular' printed size. Most consumer grade ADFs are designed to only handle A4 or letter.
I still have a couple of PSION Organiser II. 64k RAM, EPROM based storage packs, robust as hell and work off a 9V battery (read: it's portable).
The main reason this is interesting is the language: Organiser Programming Language (OPL) was a sort of combination of BASIC and Pascal, quite structured and flexible and, most importantly, because the thing was portable you could code anywhere. It ran fast because source code needed to be 'translated' to a sort of executable (akin to Pascal's original P code).
The language was extended in later products such as the PSION MX5, I think you can even still get that on eBay. Not as robust, but more 'normal' computing statistics, and I think the storage was no longer proprietary either.
If all else fails, AFAIK Symbian based products may also have that language..
As far as I can tell, you've more or less identified where Ubuntu is going. Not some 'me too' distro, but one with a clear focus on being simple, commercially supportable and rock solid. I migrated from Slackware on floppies (yes, I am that old ;-) to RH to SuSE. Barring the new Novell Desktop which I haven't tried yet I found Ubuntu the easiest to knock up a system for office staff.
As a matter of fact, it's now my preferred desktop. It's really only Visio that I can't yet replace (and by that I mean the 2000 version, MS has pretty much butchered usability in the 2003 version).
Quite simply, it rocks, and those supporting desktops know what it means if you can also boot cold off a live CD and access the system.
Plenty choice there - you're 100% right.
I've recently started an "IT for Leaders" coaching package which gives CEOs insight in what IT actually does for them and how they can (a) tell IT what they need and (b) understand what IT is trying to tell them. I simply got fed up with sales people selling them crap so I figured I'd deal with the root cause.
:-). The problem is that you cannot get their ear unless they want to hear, so here are 3 steps.
;-). The reason to throw money at is because some of these guys will not pay attention unless it hurts their budget or wallet (I guess that's why they buy MS, but I digress :-). That doesn't mean that a good consultant cannot add significant value by his/her experience, but I've worked long enough in that field to know that, numerically, the lemons far outweigh the stars so value for money is not always a given..
Now, my background is security so one whole session is dedicated to risk management (with 'Beyond Fear' as one of the important references to read) and you have no idea how much they don't know (it's one of the reasons this course is rather successful
(1) First of all, cover yourself. Preserve emails and keep printed copies. Do NOT rely on the email staying in the system (fatal mistake). You have done your best, but, let's face it, you're the messenger.
(2) Make a detailed risk analysis, or, better, get them to buy time from one of the hideously expensive consultancies to do the same. I could do it, but you'd have to ship me from Europe (CH) so it would get even more costly (although I've done some work in Sacramento a while back, staying a couple of floors under where Arnie apparently has his residence
(3) PUT NUMBERS ON IT. Unauthorised disclosure of information can lead to competitive threat (if trade secrets and strategy), legal threat (violation of privacy), liability (consequential damages) and loss of reputation (damage to brand, company image). Each individual threat can -to a degree- be translated into $$ by making some basic assumptions, that's how insurances work. Speaking of which, lowering risk means lowering insurance premiums - also worth mentioning.
Let's face it, in a way you're in the process of selling your acutely worrying insights to higher management. Well, a basic rule of sales is that it happens either via greed, fear or both. Greed: less income, loss of bonus (notice that "the company" doesn't feature in this, it's personal). Fear: exposure of ignorance, court appearance for negligence, criminal record (depends on country).
And if it all fails, find a sympathetic ear closer to your level and hope that it percolates upwards. Or, just fix the problem without telling them. If you add a crypto section to your build which uses even the basic Windows encryption (i.e. encrypted unless logged in) you have at least started to deal with some of the issues. I found it's quite good to give senior management fingerprint sensing laptops because of the gadget factor. That in the background you can hook up a crypto suite is not something they're even aware of, but it makes you sleep better at night. However, make absolutely sure that you have some sort of automated backup process going that works, like a DLO client. Otherwise, losing the key is about the same as erasing the data.
If you're in the UK, make sure you document crypto key creation and disposal or you could end up in trouble if you get served with a warrant under the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act. Under RIPA you're guilty until you can prove your innocence if you cannot access corporate encrypted data..
In any case, good luck. You'll need it..
Hmm, you've either been only near greenfield developments or have never been a large scale upgrade or deployment. Why do you think those outsourcing code outfits turn a good buck? Because it all works so well? Ever tried to move from .Net 1.0 to .Net 1.1 - pretty smooth, wasn't it?
[..] all work flawlessly without needing a full time IT staff.
We were talking about dev costs, not staff, but OK, you're alleging all those products work 'flawlessly'. If they're so wonderful I'd like to know why it's almost required to run a separate update network just to keep up with the patching. As an example, it has already been determined that it's simply no longer possible for a home user to keep up with it if they have the misfortune not to have access to broadband (see securityfocus.com). A 56k modem can NOT keep up. And that incessant updating DOES require people: in any sensible organisation any update means (1) evaluation and test (2) small scale rollout (3) mass rollout and update of builds. Or would you suggest we accept the MS updates as-is and get ourselves another Windows Genuine Advantage mess (misnomer of the year IMHO)? I'd really like to see the support model you get for $70/unit if you also have to pay for software..
To piece together a similar system on a Linux platform requires significantly more time and effort (which means more money).
Loong ago. You can get a full CMS based website up, including installation from the bare metal upwards in something of about 30 mins. That's stable, mirrored, patched, firewalled and secured, and with a journalling file system. I don't think you've even installed just Windows by then :-). I could cheat and tell you 20 seconds, but that's a virtualised section of a mainframe and doesn't count :-). BTW, locked user accounts have been the default for years with Linux as it was designed as multi-user, which is also why privilege escalation works so well when it's needed. 'Run as Administrator' is not exactly a smooth process under Windows. You have to put quite a lot of effort in (read: time/effort/cost) to go secure - and it breaks things as quite a lot of code written for Windows still assumes too high privileges. Firewalling is also not exactly new to Linux either, although BSD had it it earlier (that's what Gauntlet used to be based on, a good 10 years ago)
I couldn't help noticing from this post (and others) that we're really dealing with a case of Linux envy here:
1 - you can't get Linux to work on your new hardware
2 - you can't get Linux to work on your old hardware
3 - at some point you seem to need namecalling as a way of expressing your opinion I'm no less a Linux "fanboy" than you are a Microserf (OK, I have my doubts but you do seem to realise the existence of other stuff beyond MS so there is hope)
4 - you seem to consider the "free" offerings from MS a genuine gift to humanity rather than the saturation ploy it really is (UK schools have found that out to their cost)
5 - any idea why people use all that free, non-MS, unsupported stuff to do real work, especially since you stated this earlier: if you stick entirely with Microsoft products, there is no such glue code?
Your sole argument in practically all the hardware discussions seems to be that WiFi card you couldn't get to work. I had a Matrox VGA card that flaked in virtually all the Windows versions I used it on, even with driver updates (NT to XP) whereas it was OK in X. I suggest you do what I did: buy a better one
Before I forget, I stupidly forgot the magic ingredient: having a VISION to follow, and I don't mean that in the 'I seeee a siiign' way although that too matches the requirements :-). Duh.
Look beyond the bluster and the, um, somewhat socially inept commentary (not unusual for tech people). He knows what he wants, says it the way he sees it and in general leaves no doubt what it takes to work in his sphere. Is he always right? No. Does everyone agree with him? No. Yet he continues to have a loyal following because he knows what he's doing, has a good track record and is consistent. This also gets me to another challenge for leaders: knowing how to be wrong.
If you have ran teams like I have with absolute stars in their field you may know as much as you want - an experienced hack is likely to have come across another way of doing things that may help move things along faster. That's why you employ them, so not letting them speak is stupid IMHO. I've had to knock sense into countless managers who somehow seemed to consider changing an approach because it's someone elses idea an attack on their authority. In my book the roles are pretty accurately defined: my team is supposed to give me the advice I need to decide what we're going to do, but after listening to everyone it's still *my* decision. That works both ways too: it's my neck, not theirs, and God help anyone trying to yell at my team without coming through me - it would break my 'praise in public', 'discuss in private' policy. I'm not a good guy to have a problem with, there's more to social engineering then just getting passwords .
I don't mean non-ego in the 'not having an ego' sense, I mean non-ego in that a decision process of a good leader should be divorced from whatever ego the person possesses. If you can manage that you're a leader, especially if you can add people management skills to that. And yes, I wouldn't rate Linus very high on the people skills, but for the people he deals with it's almost not required.
I must admit, though, that his habit of totally refusing the play the normal media games (i.e. thus annoying the hell out of people who are looking for some sort of sensational statement they can print) never stops amusing me..
I once was an area tech support guy for what can be reasonably be considered the first PDA, the Psion Organiser II (if you look long enough you'll still find some of my code hiding on the Net :-). I was helping a local dealer at some show, and at the end of two long days we got bored, and used one of the demo machines for a 10 minute football match. Don't ask me how we came up with that idea, but boredom does strange things to me :-).
:-).
:-).
I'm talking stock standard 'out-of-the-box' vanilla hardware here - no fancy protective rubber covers as sold on that same show - just bare plastic. Mind you, that thing was constructed like a brick. I've seen it run over by cars and if the sleeve was closed it stood a good chance of surviving.
After that match the thing still happily showed the demo through a now rather scratched plexi window (I think it was one of the earliest versions, with 2x16 character display). We then strolled over to one of the stands with 'industrialised' versions (read: heavier and a lot more expensive) and dared them to 'sponsor' a unit for the next match. Tactical mistake: they refused in front of by now a rather large audience.
Result: we burned so fast through our stock of machines we had to start taking orders and ring the UK manufacturer to urgently ship more.. It was a neat little machine (6303 8-bit processor) and I still have two of the later 4 line versions, with 512k flash, barcode reader, swipe card reader and caliper peripherals (the latter I had to design myself for a car quality control project
You know, I don't think I'd be able to bring myself to do that with a Thinkpad
.. I'd use to put my jack on if I ever got stuck in a muddy field. It would survive - they are seriously robust pieces of kit. Having said that, I'm happy with my dual core VIAO now, about the only thing I miss is the keyboard LED.
At least it finally has a Windows key..
As I posted earlier, even in a meritocracy you need leadership. As long as participants (a) recognise that leadership is a skill in itself (b) respect the person herding the cats for doing that job and (c) the leader has the trust and support of the group (which is where the authority comes in, as well as strong personal ethics and honesty) it'll work.
/know/ they are good - the challenge is to make them see that they can even be better by allowing the team to work as a team. And I know from happy experience that it only takes one team session where everyone works as a team to convert those people forever to the idea. /THAT/ is leadership in my book.
The trust is the hard bit - it's a special skill to manage a number of often quite strong personalities. People that are good at what they do
I disagree with you. Even a meritocracy needs some method of breaking deadlock. The challenge is to find what I'd term an 'enlightened' leader. To define the term, it's a leader who him/herself is as ego-free as you can get it, sets achievable aims and who can balance out discussions in a fair but focused and constructive way. I certainly class Linus Torvalds and Mark Shuttleworth in that category, Linus by reputation and what he does, and Mark because I know him (and again, by what he has done and is doing). BTW, 'enlightened' does not mean 'perfect' - we're all human :-).
:-) - you don't abuse the priviledge of people wanting to work for you and it's a two-way street.
I have led tech teams myself, and I can still call any of the people I've worked with and ask them to come and work for me - out of a 100 people I would be disappointed if not at least 90 would want to (barring personal circumstances). THAT is a matter of personal pride to me. Not that I screwed some more hours out of a poor slob, and I've had to re-educate quite a few managers on that topic. I've had often enough that I had to instruct team leaders to drag their team off their chairs into a restaurant or cafe because they were working too hard (yes, company paid
Leadership is making a team of 10 think as if they were 20 strong - it sort of 'sings' and is one of the best working experiences you can have. Few teams do that by themselves because it's a different skill..
With Microsoft, there is no such bespoke integration code.
There is always some glue code required to make things work for a company, unless IT drives the business (a very, very bad way to do things but not uncommon, sadly). Simple stuff like logon and backup scripts, code management, that monthly timesheet spreadsheet - it's often hidden effort until you try and upgrade or migrate a company. Try doing any large scale migration without investigating that and you'll pay dearly. But let's leave it out - it's equal for both platforms.
with volume licensing, customers can get the latest OS and Office for less than $100 (IIRC it can be less than $70). For smaller organizations, Microsoft even offers the "Action Pack" (I know it's a horrible name) that includes 10 licenses for XP, Server 2003, Office 2003, and a boat load of other software for $250.
$70 per unit at volume is still more expensive than free last time I checked :-) And that discount won't be given under a 1000 units or so, so it's a straight $70k.
the hardware support for Windows far exceeds that of any Linux distribution, the hardware becomes much cheaper, as the acquisition time does not include matching up hardware with an OS flavor
I suggest you download a copy of Ubuntu and actually try it. I agree that MS has been fighting hard to retain that stranglehold, but it seems that hardware vendors start to realise the problem they're creating for themselves: being blackmailed and thus have one market, being open and have two.
Here's another -maintenance related- exercise for you: replace the motherboard in a system (on a corporate level, replace the machine and try to use your one build on another system when the box malfunctions). Welcome to driver hell, even appearing when the supplier has upgraded a couple of chips on their motherboard in an identical system. That's one of the things I've enjoyed with Linux over the years, all the way from Worries for Workgroups upwards - rip-n-replace. In short, "far" is overstated, and every basic Dell will spin up straightaway from a live CD.
There's another implicit advantage to this hardware freedom: it makes universal live CDs easier to construct - one CD can boot all sorts of hardware. I've worked on enough Windows systems that had a damaged NTFS structure to know just what a lifesaver that is. Letting NTFS 'repair' the disk when it has it's tables in a mess is the best data destruction method I've come across (short of using a magnet on the platters), using a Linux boot disk and getting hold of the data Windows doesn't see anymore alone is worth the effort investigating Linux. And with any Linux distro having a journalling file system by default it's actually hard to zap data by power down (less NEED for full power resets helps as well, of course, but that is thankfully becoming less and less needed).
Since when does an installation of Windows require a hardware refresh?
LOL.. Ever since MS released new hardware specs with every new version of Windows. And we're not talking about patches, I have yet to see any OS that requires a hardware swap for a patch..
[..] Sure, if you want to upgrade to a later OS, you might need a faster CPU, more memory, and more disk space to take advantage of the new features, but that same issue spans all platforms.
That is complete baloney. I've installed proper, workable systems on machines that could no longer support Windows because the "new" version had come up with new and innovative ways of wasting CPU power. As a matter of fact, it's an excellent way of recycling machines (another factor to consider in a refresh cycle). You now need more computing power than was used to send a man to the moon to run a simple word processor - where is all that going? Ah, yes, AV checking, spyware double checks, DRM management, phone-home facilities (i.e. illegal data taps) - none of it
n/t = no text. Duh.
It never ends - I always learn something new here (and long may it continue).
:-). I'm sure it'll come out in the end ;-).
The learning process you describe is exactly that of martial arts as well. First you go through the moves, and especially in Tai Chi are you very quickly introduced to the idea that it's not the move that matters, it's what your mind does with it (I mention Tai Chi because it's one of the most potent forms using the mind).
It then takes years to make your mind and the moves "one" - but at least you know early what you're aiming for. A friend of mine demonstrates this rather bluntly with the 1-inch punch (move with and without mind - and make sure you have a safe landing zone), I -as an interested amateur- tend to show the waterhose method instead.
I'm over 40, and always wanted to play an instrument. I think I'm the type that accepts a period of near absence of ability, but I do need a bit of encouragement from time to time. It's time (a) working out what I want to play and (b) find a teacher locally. The two may actually influence eachother as I have no real bias. Piano, guitar, both attract (one's more portable, though), but you got me a tad worried about locking myself up in do-re-mi and fret-determined intervals
If you ever come to Zurich, let me know. I'll leave my Slashdot email address enabled for a day or so to allow you to make contact if you so wish.
I really like the way you explain things. The correlation between doing things you /LIKE/ for a long time and thus become good at them. I've got another one, though: sometimes it takes a life changing event to figure out what you really like..
Incidentally, you mentioned some issues that seem to be neurologic in nature. Ever looked at neurofeedback? I've seen some frankly amazing results with that: a little kid (9 years old) with dyspraxia finally be able to cycle, and the scientific basis of it makes logical sense. I think there's a small conference on in the UK in 2 weeks.
Here's a simple equation for you:
/IS/ an exceptional waste of money. Even Tony Blair can't spin that one..
1 desktop = 1x hardware + 1x software suite + 1x share of bespoke integration code + 1x support costs.
With Linux (say, Ubuntu), you can scrap the "1x software" expense, and share the "1x share of bespoke integration code" over a larger audience.
And that's without touching matters like hardware refresh cycles (about 50% of an MS driven cycle), deployment costs (terminal based systems, you can set up a whole classroom in one (1) hour, risk management (ever heard of a computer virus?), license management (bye bye FAST revenue model).
Oh, and support costs are way down as well. The whole Spanish Extremedura thing is managed by a handful of techs (I think 10 or so by now).
So, you can spin it anyway you want - MS
There is, of course, the risk that, with so much money spent on MS software, maths education hasn't been quite up to scratch, though, so maybe this isn't that clear to all.